The present invention relates to a thermally operated plate making apparatus capable of producing a plate on which a plurality of images of a small-size document are engraved side by side by a continuous operation.
A prior art apparatus of the kind described includes a reading device and a writing device. The reading device is made up of a transport member which is so positioned as to allow an original document to be fed on and along a glass platen, a reading member for reading the document being transported by the transport member through an optical arrangement, and a sensing member for sensing the document which is read by the reading member. On the other hand, the writing device is made up of a thermal head, and a platen roller rotatable for transporting a stencil, which is paid out from a roll, while pressing it against a heating section of the thermal head. Such a prior art apparatus is capable only of faithfully reproducing a single document and engraving it in a stencil which corresponds to a single plate. Specifically, it cannot produce a plate on which, for example, two images of a single document of format B5 are provided side by side by a continuous operation by using a stencil whose plate making area is of format B4, without preparing beforehand a document of format B4 on which two images of the B5 document are printed side by side. The preparation of such a preliminary document is disproportionately time- and labor-consuming and troublesome.